Happy Monday all, and happy February as well!
I’ve been in Oslo for exactly a month, time
has flown by.
I’m going to start out
this post by trying to explain my program setup over here, which has proved a
little difficult each time I’ve been asked by other students.
I’m in Norway with
HECUA, a study abroad organization, not a school. I applied to my program after learning about
it at USF, my school. The way it worked
out is that USF has sponsored programs for studying abroad which means it has
partnerships with other schools, especially Jesuit ones, and organizations like
HECUA. Being in a sponsored program
means I pay the same tuition as I do when on campus in San Francisco. So, in a nutshell, I’m paying what I would in
the states but get to live abroad for a semester… Who can turn that down?!?
Anyways, my classes are where it gets hard to explain.
I’m taking three classes here, two that are
sit down with attendance and my ISP, and my only classmates are six other
Americans.
I’m taught by one professor
for my two meet up classes, who is also American but has lived in Norway for
five or so years. All this in mind, I study at the University of Oslo but with
HECUA courses.
Meaning I never
registered, my classes were the ones I knew coming in, and so I don’t have
classes with other UiO students.
If you’re
confused that’s totally understandable, I get that reaction a lot.
I recommend looking up the HECUA website if
you want to learn more! (
www.hecua.org)
I wrote for a little bit about my program because today was
a great example of what we do in our American small group. We started out on campus for a class session
about Norwegian politics, with the main topic being about the country’s most
successful party: the Labor Party. After
our class discussion, we went out on what’s called a field seminar. Today we got the chance to go to the Labor
Youth Party’s headquarters and meet with Trygve, a 24 year old policy advisor
for AUF (the youth party’s acronym).
Every Norwegian party, there’s nine total with seven in Stortinget
aka Parliament, has a youth party which as a Politics major had me so envious. There’s nothing comparable in America to the
youth parties here. Trygve is a part of
the largest youth party; Labor is the largest party as a whole so that makes
sense as well as the fact that young Norwegians really identify with the center
left ideology of Labor. According to
him, there are about 13,000 members in AUF with an age range of 13 to
mid-30s. And AUF really can have influence
over its mother party; having a youth voice on policy can sway those sitting in Stortinget. Plus, those involved in
the youth party can feed into the mother party.
All in all, youth in Norway have a much bigger opportunity to become
politically involved with the country’s parties than any way I’ve seen in the
US. Like I’ve mentioned, as a Politics
major this was a great field seminar. We’ll
also be meeting with other youth parties in the coming days/weeks like with the
Young Conservatives.
Moving on to the past week!
Here’s the breakdown:
Tuesday: Class
was awesome today! One word:
Borgen. That’s the title of the really
popular Danish show about a female prime minister. Like the quality of The West Wing. As I said, awesome.
After class I went back to my room and locked myself in for
the night to finish a paper that was due on Wednesday. It was difficult because I had only the night
before to work on it as well because I had been in ISP proposal mode til Monday
morning which dominated my weekend (refer to prior post). Anyways, essay writing took up most of my
Tuesday.
Wednesday:
Turned in my paper in the morning (huzzah!) and then headed to my
internship at Queer Youth. Today was my
first full shift after a little difficulty with the front buzzer. I met up with Ashild, Eirik, and the rest of
those from the floor since Queer Youth has a connected kitchen with its mother
organization LLH. My main tasks of the
day were two things. One was helping do
some mega meal planning plus grocery shopping for the national gathering this
weekend for QY (all the regional offices from across Norway were coming for
three days of meetings). And the other
was to start the ground work on a blog QY’s Transgender Committee wants
built. I’ve blogged before (derp) but
have only done ones for my personal use.
This one is going to be much more sophisticated with its design and has
seven bloggers. I talked with Emil, who
is going to be part of it, about what the group wants and am going to build
what I can for them. This is will a cool
project and learning opportunity so fingers crossed it goes well!
The other thing about QY today was having lunch with both
offices and explaining my program (like above) and what our course material
is. Telling Norwegians about what I’ve
learned about Norwegian identity and nationalism is something I’ll remember
forever.
After my shift I had dinner (tacos!) with my pal Erica and
we worked on our presentation for the next day.
One of the other things we have to do in the HECUA program is lead integration
seminars where a pair has to engage the rest of the class in the subjects of
the week. So Erica and I made a rockin’
Jeopardy game about Norwegian politics, oh yeah. Candy and a mug were picked out as the prize for
the winner.
Thursday:
FINALLY got my resident permit squared away at the police station, hope
I never have to go there again. Had to
go twice, once for my early morning appointment and again after class since the
computer system went down. Done now,
waiting for the permit to come in the mail.
Then I’ll be a legal resident of Norway, woot woot! As for the integration seminar, it was a
hit. Nailed it, and everyone had
fun. Jeff, our professor, really liked
the idea of our seminar because apparently back in the day he was on Teen Jeopardy,
no big deal… Yeah right. That’s a serious
big deal; I wish I could be on Jeopardy any time of my life! Maybe someday…
After my second trip to the police station of the day I went
out to hit up the last of the January sales.
Oslo has a ton of shopping, and I swear the number of H&Ms is second
only to convenient stores. I found two
shirts from low and behold H&M of course.
I know we have the chain in America, but cute clothes are cute. And two shirts for 149 NOK (about $27) isn’t
bad at all in Norway. My shopping was
less expensive than grocery shopping. A
six pack of good beer can easily get close to 120 NOK, more than one shirt,
ugh. I learned the hard lesson a while
ago that a Smirnoff ice four pack was about 130 NOK. Alcohol is pretty ridiculous here; stay tuned
for what I paid on Sunday.
Lastly, I finished the night at the student pub Amatøren for Quiz Night which is really
popular here. And I think the winners
get a free round of beers, so that makes a lot of since why people love going
to Quiz Night. Just kidding, it’s also
fun to merely play as well.
Friday: Second
shift bar tending at Uglebo! Another fun
shift and another early morning return to my apartment (5:30am this time) that
included a stop to the 24 hour McDonald’s.
Great night and fun people.
Saturday:
Slept in til about noon and then went to Uglebo again in the evening but
this time it was for a work party. As volunteer student bartenders, we’re
called interns which I find kind of funny, so it was an intern party to be
specific. And while we get intern pieces
normally on every menu item (the selection is plenty of beers, wine, and alcoholic
cider), this party had hard liquor. That
may sound standard for America, but here in Norway that is a really something
to celebrate. The cocktails were amazing
cheap for Oslo, 40 NOK for any mixed drink offered that night. Forty kroner is about seven bucks which about
matches US prices so I was in total bliss.
I definitely took advantage of this chance to drink since it was a rare
one. Beer is the norm in Norway, so
mixed drinks for 40 NOK was near miraculous.
Anyways, major perk of bar tending, super glad to be appreciated with a
great party! Everyone was really nice,
affordable booze was flowing, and I had a wonderful time.
Sunday: I was
planning to have a really lazy Sunday, with laundry and an early night in. Laundry yes, early night no. My roommates and buddy group wanted to go to
a club downtown called BLÅ (sounds like blah, means blue) that was free, age 20
and up, and has a live band every Sunday night.
I had heard about it already and how great it is so I thought, sure
while in Norway why not?
I met up with some people from my buddy group, one of my
roomies, and a few others for a pre party and then headed to BLÅ, meeting up
with another roomie and his friends. And
I’m really glad I went out because BLÅ was really fun! The band was snazzy, with lots of energy and
a sax. The music kind of reminded me a
little of Ska. The place was packed with
people and everyone was having a good time.
The prices of drinks were high even for Oslo standards, 68 NOK for a
pint of beer and I even paid 92 NOK for a rum and coke. I’ll let you do the exchange rate since I
cringe at the thought of it. But oh
well, BLÅ was worth it! And I paid for
plenty of other drinks the night before at the Uglebo party at very decent
prices so I’m going with the logic that the two nights even out. Come to think of it, I went to bars four
nights in a row, ha. But back to BLÅ: I
danced, I meet new people and hung out with fun ones I already had meet before,
drank, laughed and it was a great time.
Glad I went out and that wrapped up my weekend.
Wow, this was a long post!
All the photos below are from my wandering during shopping on
Thursday. I didn’t take any other
pictures because, well, I was too busy having fun/working to document it, ha. Enjoy the ones of sunny downtown Oslo!
Also, to conclude, it’s important for all you readers to
know I’m heading off to the UK in a few days for my midterm break. This means one of two things will happen with
the blog: I’ll either post next Monday as usual or have a double feature piece
in two weeks! Til I write again, cheers!
One of the many H&Ms
A pretty day downtown
Old style building meets consumerism
One of the main strips, and the palace down the lane
Stortinget, the hub of the Norwegian state
